Switchyard Brewing Co. has become the latest establishment to accept bitcoin as a method of payment.
Switchyard Brewing Is Excited About Crypto
Located in Indiana, Switchyard is the first brewery in the area to make the transition to crypto. The primary executive of the company, Kurtis Cummings, doesn’t expect all his patrons to immediately flock to BTC to purchase beer and food, though he is excited about being part of what he feels is a growing trend, and he’s happy to be the first Indiana-based brewery to make this shift.
Switchyard is helping bitcoin and crypto become more legitimate by bringing its primary goals to the front lines. Many people don’t know that crypto was initially designed to serve as a method of payment, though it has primarily taken on a more speculative form in recent years. This is because it is extremely volatile. The price goes up without notice, and it can go down just as easily.
Thus, if played right, crypto can make a person quite rich, though many businesses have been reluctant to say “yes” to crypto payments out of fear that they will lose profit, and to an extent, we can’t really blame them.
Consider the following scenario: a person walks into a store somewhere and buys $50 worth of merchandise with bitcoin. For whatever reason, the store does not convert that BTC into fiat right away, and the next day, bitcoin goes down. That $50 becomes $40, and while the store has now lost $10 in profit, the customer still gets to keep everything they bought. Is that fair? Not everyone thinks so.
Thanks to companies like Switchyard, the realities of bitcoin’s initial goals are getting stronger. Michael McClung is the new “chief crypto officer” of the company. He has worked hard to ensure crypto payments can be done easily through the brewery’s payment app, and he’s been using crypto for many years as a retail trader.
Cummings described his joy and eagerness about bitcoin in a recent interview:
This is peer-to-peer. If I want to send you money, I send it directly. With cryptocurrency, it’s like [the] freedom of the people to exchange finances without any oversight or anyone taking their cut.
Cummings says that one of the benefits to using bitcoin is that there are no middlemen. The transactions associated with bitcoin occur through two individual parties, and any prying eyes are instantly removed from the equation. This, he says, contributes to full financial independence and privacy for those involved.
More Companies Need to Make the Shift
Cummings also feels that while the trend is slow for now, he is confident more companies will begin accepting crypto as the space becomes more mainstream. He says:
It’s a little more cumbersome right now, but the more that brick-and-mortar companies accept this technology, it will become much easier.
